Both in rich and poor countries, universal health care brings huge benefits • Hacker News Board

Re: Both in rich and poor countries, universal health care brings huge benefits

#201

Post by chimeracoder » Wed, May 02, 2018, 3:32 PM UTC

sykh wrote: post #175

creaghpatr wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Do Medicare recipients seek to leave it? No, because it's free, but 1/3 of Medicare recipients opt to receive their coverage through private insurers that typically add on additional coverage, an indicator that Medicare alone is not enough for a large segment of the population, or that they prefer a private insurer even with government subsidization. https://www.kff.org/medicare/fact-sheet/medicare-advantage/

Excellent. We are in agreement that the American government can and does provide a health insurance program that covers lots of people and has the property that people don’t seek to leave it. Perhaps the idea that everyone be covered in such a system is not so far fetched.

> We are in agreement that the American government can and does provide a health insurance program that covers lots of people and has the property that people don’t seek to leave it.

People literally are leaving it, to the fullest extent that they legally can.

It's not a small number, either. About 40% of Medicare patients aren't on the government-run system at all, and that number has consistently grown over the years.

Re: Both in rich and poor countries, universal health care brings huge benefits

#202

Post by redbeard0x0a » Wed, May 02, 2018, 3:32 PM UTC

HankB99 wrote: post #170

clarkevans wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It seems the public interest is subordinate to private interests and often times with immoral consequences. This perspective of public vs private interest is rather puzzling to me -- it's more a matter of short-term vs long-term thinking. In the long-term, it's in the private interest of those having sustainable companies to have a broad base of educated and healthy workers to employ. The short-term interest of any…

I agree with the long term / short term dichotomy. I believe the same dynamic is at work WRT the concentration of wealth in the US. I understand the short term desire to accumulate wealth. I do it myself. It seems to me that if trends continue, there will be less and less income for the other 99% to spend. (Yes, I'm mixing income and wealth here because I believe that the desire to increase wealth on the part of the…

I think it is a possibility, the wealthy are building doomsday bunkers. There is writing on the wall, they just need to outlast the uprising and then come out and buy up everything really cheap.

Re: Both in rich and poor countries, universal health care brings huge benefits

#203

Post by arcticbull » Wed, May 02, 2018, 3:32 PM UTC

ordinaryperson wrote: post #176

arcticbull wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Steve Jobs: no talent. Bezos: no talent. Obama: no talent. I'm definitely not saying that. What I am saying is that their talent had to be coupled with an immense amount of luck, being in the right place at the right time, and things falling in line just right for them. > Again, I'm not wealthy, so these taxes would not affect me. But I'm not sure you're correctly modeling transmission vectors for communicable dise…

Obviously, I'd like everyone to be healthy and with an affordable education. But our universe is finite and someone has to pay for these services. Just blindly assuming we can tax all wealthy people into total equality seems like a pipe dream to me. Hence, I'm arguing that instead of just blind wealth transfers from one group to the collective we should focus a lot more energy on bringing the cost of care down. Just…

I don't think we should tax the wealthy into equality, I believe in income and wealth inequality -- its the incentive and reward structure an economy should have. However, it's only moral and right when coupled with a meaningful quality of life for the lowest end, and only when coupled with social mobility. Socialized medicine and the safety net allows for risk taking, allows the poor to build businesses without the fear of death in the event of failure.

Cost of care goes down when you stop wasting money on advertisement, CEO bonuses, and people whose job it is to deny claims. Cost of care goes down when you provide preventative care that's necessary and affordable. When you dont have people without insurance wandering into the ER at the last possible second who could have been treated for pennies on the dollar earlier on. All the data we have on Medicare backs this up, even though its an awful example for reasons I cited above.

Further if you claim that we can't afford to cover everyone, you're going to need to back up your claims because every other country in the OECD would disagree with you.

tl;dr: Income/wealth inequality is a good incentive, when the poor don't die, starve and can live well, and have the opportunity to move up. Socialized medicine enables this.

Re: Both in rich and poor countries, universal health care brings huge benefits

#204

Post by clarkevans » Wed, May 02, 2018, 3:32 PM UTC

Consultant32452 wrote: post #173

rogerb wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a simple thought experiment that helps: - an american citizen break his leg, he is not insured. Do you A: let him die B: take care of him ? if your answer is A - you are a terrible person, but you hold a consistent position. if your answer is B - the only question that remains is what is the most economic, efficient way to take care of this person ? b is universal health care. if you think you can do A with e…

The most economically efficient way to pay for B is to allow the free market to drive the cost of care so low that the person is either able to pay for it, or the cost through charity is trivial. This has the double benefit of not attempting to rectify one moral wrong (person does not receive care) by committing another (violent coercion by the state).

Regarding "violent coersion of the state", by this, I assume you mean.. taxes.

At this point in the world's history, we are not individuals who can wander off into the wilderness on our own, to live and die as God might have intended. We are members of a vast, global social fabric. We benefit from it. We pay into it. There's no way to avoid the coersion/evils or really deny the benefits/goods that this society provides. We can only discuss things relatively speaking, on a whole, in balance.

I think a productive use of our time is thinking about (and experimenting with) how information technology could better support our emerging social fabric so that we could make the best collective decisions: that is, enable even more personal freedom.

Re: Both in rich and poor countries, universal health care brings huge benefits

#205

Post by amclennon » Wed, May 02, 2018, 3:32 PM UTC

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #53

ape4 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Universal health care helps startups.

This is not certain. There is evidence that the safer people feel, the less willing they are to take risks. This is only paradoxical at first glance.

On the other hand, taking potential health concerns out of the equation makes working for a startup inherently less risky.

Before the ACA removed restrictions of pre-existing conditions, merely switching employers carried the risk of losing access to necessary healthcare.

Re: Both in rich and poor countries, universal health care brings huge benefits

#206

Post by fogzen » Wed, May 02, 2018, 3:33 PM UTC

Consultant32452 wrote: post #173

rogerb wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a simple thought experiment that helps: - an american citizen break his leg, he is not insured. Do you A: let him die B: take care of him ? if your answer is A - you are a terrible person, but you hold a consistent position. if your answer is B - the only question that remains is what is the most economic, efficient way to take care of this person ? b is universal health care. if you think you can do A with e…

The most economically efficient way to pay for B is to allow the free market to drive the cost of care so low that the person is either able to pay for it, or the cost through charity is trivial. This has the double benefit of not attempting to rectify one moral wrong (person does not receive care) by committing another (violent coercion by the state).

Law is violent coercion. This isn’t libertarian philosophy class, it’s the real world.

In many places in the real world, universal government insurance is already in place. This isn’t some hypothetical.

Re: Both in rich and poor countries, universal health care brings huge benefits

#207

Post by dnomad » Wed, May 02, 2018, 3:33 PM UTC

mter wrote: post #190

Pharylon wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The VA has gotten a lot of bad headlines, but I work with a vet who absolutely loved the VA. He brags about the quality and speed of his healthcare all the time. This is in Charlotte, NC. Different offices might be different.

The thing with the VA isn't that it's all bad. It's that the percentage of completely inept people seems higher than in a normal hospital. Normal hospitals don't have multiple scandals of reusing insulin pens on different people, reusing colonoscopy bags, killing people, paralyzing people and periodically losing all of our records. A lot of veterans who are covered by the VA are like me. Technically covered because o…

Again, this is not true. Read the studies comparing VA care to private care. You're actually better off going to a VA hospital than most private hospitals.

Re: Both in rich and poor countries, universal health care brings huge benefits

#208

Post by frgtpsswrdlame » Wed, May 02, 2018, 3:34 PM UTC

clarkevans wrote: post #94

sykh wrote: post #6

When a person gets a life threatening disease they ought not worry about whether or not their treatment will leave their family in penury. This is especially so in a nation as wealthy as the U.S. The American healthcare system is immoral and I hope it drastically changes. Americans need to change their underlying notions of what it means to be a society. An author was once made fun of for suggesting that it takes a v…

> It seems the public interest is subordinate to private interests and often times with immoral consequences. This perspective of public vs private interest is rather puzzling to me -- it's more a matter of short-term vs long-term thinking. In the long-term, it's in the private interest of those having sustainable companies to have a broad base of educated and healthy workers to employ. The short-term interest of any…

>This perspective of public vs private interest is rather puzzling to me -- it's more a matter of short-term vs long-term thinking.

I actually think a long-term vs short-term view is insufficient. Let's step away from firms and take the case of the rich and the poor individual. For the poor individual it is in their interest in the short and long-term interest to have universal healthcare. For the rich individual, it is in their short and long-term interest to prevent universal healthcare. According to the investment theory of party competition [1] this rich vs poor divide becomes reflected in our politics as both parties vie for the donations of the wealthy.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Investment_theory_of_party_com...

Re: Both in rich and poor countries, universal health care brings huge benefits

#209

Post by Frondo » Wed, May 02, 2018, 3:35 PM UTC

conanbatt wrote: post #123

monocasa wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can't start any economic argument by saying that paying any cost is a must. You will get fleeced. ... in an open market.

In a government program you get fleeced twice, first by extra taxes, and second by worse services.

I feel like throw-away statements like this almost come out of a different era, like the platform Reagan ran on, "government isn't the solution, it's the problem" or whatever.

They're claims that are so simply phrased, people can repeat them without thinking critically about them, but if you do, and start unpacking them, the claims are either wholly unsupported, or unknowable.

"Taxes == get fleeced" ... no. Or, at least, not as a matter of course. Maybe some taxes are bad, or unfair, but we can judge each tax on its merits.

"Government program provides worse services" ... no. Or, at least, not as a matter of course. Maybe some things the private sector does better? But a huge swath of civic life relies on government services because, well, that's by definition what government provides, the building blocks of civic life.

Re: Both in rich and poor countries, universal health care brings huge benefits

#210

Post by jdub » Wed, May 02, 2018, 3:36 PM UTC

rukittenme wrote: post #141

Sangermaine wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What makes you think universal healthcare would be any different? Because America isn't the entire world and there are many places where socialized healthcare of various forms have been very successfully implemented for a long time. The idea peddled by conservatives in America that the only options for socialized healthcare are inevitable failure or tyranny is simply, demonstrably nonsense. It's exactly this kind of…

Oh yes. Everyone who disagrees with me has a limited mindset. You could have used your open mind to read about a European (within this comment thread) who is having trouble with "the right" in his country: > This is a principal reason why the US was crossed off my list of countries where I would work and live. I fight against the privatization that is occurring within healthcare in my native country, Iceland. We used…

The controversy that surrounds universal healthcare systems goes something like this:

"I am disappointed by my treatment in the system!"

"Do you want to privatise it?"

"Absolutely not."